Extra tidbits from Morris tennis at state

MT. PROSPECT – I don’t remember the Morris Daily Herald ever covering the girls tennis state final tournament, but in my 11 years here, we’ve never had multiple Morris entrants at once.

And so I went Oct. 24 – first to Hersey High School, to watch Morris singles player Megan Davy in action, and then to Prospect High, where I caught the end of the third doubles match for Monica Davy and Leah Lines and the entirety of the fourth.

I can say with more certainty than in the past that we’ve already covered the tennis itself, so I won’t go into details about what happened on the court. But there were a few nuggets that I wasn’t able to work into my state coverage that I think are very much worth sharing.

One is the relationship between Monica Davy, a junior, and her freshman sister, Megan. Because she went 0-2, Megan was able to watch her sister in action, which she told me she was unable to do when Monica competed at state as a sophomore.

“I couldn’t miss school,” Megan said.

The fact that the Davys were at different sites, and that Monica and her partner played four matches in a little more than six hours, prevented Monica from getting to see her sister in action.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t and I really wish I could have,” Monica said. “I heard she had two really tough matches. Megan is such a great player, and I really think that when she’s a senior, everybody better look out. I couldn’t be more proud of her.”

Other members of Megan’s family did get to see her play at state.

“This is just gonna be like any other family reunion,” Megan said prior to state. “But then we get to play tennis and be competitive at the same time.”

The distance that separated the Davys when they played was only a few miles, but it was more than the few feet that separated them for most of the season.

“I’ll never forget this high school year where I get to look down at the court next to me and she’s playing right there. It’s a really great feeling,” Monica said.

Until state, I hadn’t realized the Redskins’ made purposeful alterations to their schedule this season. On the Saturdays in September, they played in quadrangular meets at St. Viator and Palatine, an invitational at Lemont and at Lincoln-Way Central with Tinley Park. In 2012, they had no Saturday events scheduled in September.

“I think those quads that we did throughout the season really helped them because we’ve already basically done something like this,” Morris coach Becky Ortega said. “Pretend like it’s another quad, just to take some of the pressure off.”

Lines said the beefed-up schedule is partly responsible for she and Monica Davy going 2-2 at state after they were 1-2 the year prior.

“I knew this competition was gonna be extra good, and I know that playing in our Saturday tournaments this year really helped, because we faced better competition then and it helped us to win that extra match at state,” Lines said.